A real forest bursts with life, unlike an economic forest, says photo artist Sanni Seppo. His and Ritva Kovalainen's great work for the old forests culminated in an information book and a photo exhibition.
Photographic artist Sanni Seppo answer the phone from somewhere other than the forest.
Seppo says that he is happily skiing in Ilomantsi on the land owned by his flock of siblings, who have qualified for the state's Metso conservation program. He praises the previous night's full moon above and says that he thought about the security brought by the forest.
“Safety comes from knowing that the forest is not cut down,” he says on the phone.
The feeling of happiness echoes from the cell phone as non-stop talk. Seppo has something to say about the forest, and the recently completed major work of more than three decades also speaks of it.
North wind forest is not only a photo exhibition traveling around Finland, but also a non-fiction book that was nominated for the Finlandia Award in the fall.
Seppo photographed and wrote North wind forest his colleagues and fellow artists Ritva Kovalainen with. The work ends the trilogy, of which the previous parts are A nation of trees (1997) and Forest management measures (2009).
North wind forest – book is as much a research-based information book as it is a photographic work. Its forest pictures stand out from the usual with their lighter color treatment.
With their book and photo exhibition, Sanni Seppo and Ritva Kovalainen call for a deeper understanding of the nature of the forest than is currently the case.
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“The forest is the cradle of life, the economic forest is not.”
The era of intensive forestry has caused the fact that when we talk about the forest, we really only mean wood cubes, Seppo explains.
However, according to him, “forest” is a completely different thing from “economic forest”.
“A forest is a community of organisms that has formed over hundreds and thousands of years. This kind of thing cannot happen in Talousmetsa. A forest is the cradle of life, an economic forest is not,” says Seppo.
The majority of Finns have never seen a forest in its natural state, and that is a tragedy for Sepo.
“If there is no view of history, the nation becomes thinner and poorer.”
Last old ones the Finnish state is also cutting down forests.
“Because there are so few natural forests, it would now be really important to protect all those that have the species of the old forest left, even if the traces of human activity are visible. Thus, in the future, we could develop forests that safeguard diversity. When you cut down a natural forest, you can never get it back.”
Saving them is not easy. According to Sepo and Kovalainen's book, nature conservation is still opposed with the same objections as in the 1970s, when the environmental movement was founded:
Horror images of economic collapse, forced protection and socialization have remained justifications for half a century.
Carbon evolution, 2021.
North wind forest the topic is the so-called natural forests. So not naturalguests forests.
Natural forests have been almost completely destroyed in Finland. About one percent of our forests are left in their natural state, and according to Sepo, almost all of them are already protected.
A natural forest, on the other hand, is one that has been allowed to grow in peace without much influence from human activity. Such forests still remain in the north and near the eastern border. Elsewhere, only in small fragments.
“Old trees grow in a natural forest, but it doesn't have to be completely old,” explains Seppo.
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“We are not green at all, but the common spirit was that Martinselkonen should be protected.”
in a natural forest dead trees are important. In an ordinary commercial forest, there is almost no time for a stout, old dead tree to grow.
Seppo sheds light on why conservationists always talk about dead and rotten trees. There are 5,000 species living in Finnish nature that depend on them. Among them are, for example, dwarfs, lichens and insects. Some species need dead wood of a certain age and size.
Such is, for example, the rare beetle raven (Pytho kolwensis).
The raven lays its eggs in an old fallen spruce tree, the trunk of which the larvae of bark beetles and hornets have already dug their tunnels, and which is rotting away from the ground, supported by the branches.
“The tree is in different stages of death is terribly important,” says Seppo.
Entanglement, 2021.
There is hope, also in surprising places.
North wind forest – book tells the story of Kainuu from 30 years ago.
In the eastern part of Suomussalmi municipality, Martinselkonen's elderly shelters are located. At the beginning of the 1990s, the state planned logging there.
Resistance arose from the local moose group.
The book recounts the incident Eero Seppänenwho in the early 1990s also sat on the municipal board:
“We are not green at all, but the common spirit was that Martinselkonen should be protected. It was a place for us to relax.”
The then minister of the environment was lured in by cunning and partly by luck Sirpa Pietikäinen (cook) for a visit to Martinselkone. He arrived in July at prime lacquer time. That's when Eero Seppänen presented the minister with a wish to save forests.
“It came as a surprise that no one in the parliament opposed protection – probably because the initiative came from the locals and there were no greens. I could imagine that these days, when the greens present something, we are immediately at odds.”
The minister received appropriate thanks for his influence. One of Martinselkonen's little waters was named Pietikäinen's pond.
Ritva Kovalainen and Sanni Seppo: Northern Wind Forest photo exhibition at the Turku Art Museum, Fri 26.1.–19.5. Pohjoistuuli metsä information book (Hiilinielu Tuotanto and Miellotar), 320 pages.
Microcosm (detail), 2022.
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